"Beyond Professor: Reimagining Growth, Purpose, and Joy in the Later Stages of an Academic Career"

Sponsored by the Department of Internal Medicine's SWAG (Supporting Women in Achieving Greatness) Committee

Speaker:

Elizabeth Maher, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Internal Medicine
Division of Hematology & Oncology
UT Southwestern Medical Center

About Elizabeth Maher:

Originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, Dr. Maher is a physician-scientist who earned her medical and doctorate degrees from McGill University in Montreal.  She completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto and then completed a medical oncology fellowship and subspecialty training in neuro-oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston. 

Throughout her career, Dr. Maher has served as both a clinical doctor and a research scientist. She joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute upon completing her clinical training, serving as an Instructor in Internal Medicine (Medical Oncology) for six years. During that time, she also pursued additional postdoctoral research training to combine her scientific focus on brain tumors with patient care for those with glioblastoma and the lower-grade gliomas.

Dr. Maher joined the faculty at UT Southwestern in 2006 as the Medical Director of the Neuro-Oncology Program, a role she served in until 2013 when she became the Director of Translational Research in Neuro-Oncology. She co-founded the Neuro-Oncology Translational Research Laboratory in the Annette Strauss Center for Neuro-Oncology, where she has pursued an active translational research program in gliomas and held numerous federal, state, and foundation grants. She serves as the Director of the Crystal Charity Ball Center for Pediatric Brain and Neurological Diseases, which has focused on pediatric medulloblastoma and glioma.

As a member of the international investigative team studying and targeting the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutations in gliomas, Dr. Maher led multiple clinical trials at UT Southwestern that culminated in approval of the first molecularly targeted therapy for low-grade gliomas. Her innovative and groundbreaking work in partnership with UT Southwestern's imaging scientists led to key breakthroughs in translational neuro-oncology.